Integrating NetScaler Control Center with Citrix CloudPlatform

Integrating NetScaler Control Center with Citrix CloudPlatform helps streamline management of NetScaler devices. After this integration, Citrix CloudPlatform communicates with NetScaler Control Center using REST APIs over HTTPS. A single instance of NetScaler Control Center is configured for an entire Citrix CloudPlatform deployment.

Roles and Privileges

You must require administrator privileges on NetScaler Control Center and on Citrix CloudPlatform to perform the integration tasks described in this blog post.

Prerequisites

Ensure the following before you integrate NetScaler Control Center with Citrix CloudPlatform:

Provision and Configure NetScaler Control Center Appliance on a Host
A NetScaler Control Center administrator can do this task. For more information, refer to the NetScaler Control Center documentation.

Access NetScaler Control Center and Citrix CloudPlatform
For convenience, you can access NetScaler Control Center and Citrix CloudPlatform in two adjacent tabs of your web browser and logon to them simultaneously.Note: The procedures described in this blog post assume that you are accessing active sessions of NetScaler Control Center and Citrix CloudPlatform.

Typical URL for NetScaler Control Center: http://<IP-address-of-NetScaler Control Center>/admin_ui/cc/html/index.html?

Generate API Key and Secret Key in Citrix CloudPlatform
Generate API and Secret keys associated with your Citrix CloudPlatform account that has administrator privileges. You must provide these keys in NetScaler Control Center.

In the Citrix CloudPlatform UI, in the left navigation bar, click Accounts.

In the right-side panel, click the name of your account.

Under Details, click the View Users link.

In the table that displays the details of your account, click your user name that appears in the Username column.

Under Details, click the Generate Keys icon to generate new API and Secret keys. You can save them in a notepad.

Integration Task Flow

Task 1: Register Citrix CloudPlatform in NetScaler Control Center

To communicate with Citrix CloudPlatform, NetScaler Control Center uses API and Secret keys of CloudPlatform. To communicate with NetScaler Control Center, Citrix CloudPlatform uses the administrator account credentials that you configure in NetScaler Control Center.

In NetScaler Control Center, in the page that displays a message to select a cloud platform, select Citrix CloudPlatform and click OK.

In the Configure Citrix CloudPlatform Settings page, enter the following details and click OK:

You must enable NetScaler as the network service provider in a zone that is available in the region.

In the Citrix CloudPlatform UI, in the left navigation bar, click Infrastructure.

On the right-side panel, in the Zones tile, click View all.

In the page that lists zones, in the Zone column, click the name of the zone that you want to associate with the NetScaler device.

Click the Physical Network tab.

In the table that lists the physical networks, click the name of the physical network where you want to enable NetScaler as network service provider.

In the Network Service Providers node of the diagram, click Configure.

In the table that lists network service providers, click NetScaler.

In the Details page, click the Enable Provider icon.

Now, you have successfully integrated NetScaler Control Center with Citrix CloudPlatform.

In NetScaler Control Center, you can add NetScaler devices, associate the Citrix CloudPlatform zone where you have enabled NetScaler as network service provider to them, create service packages and assign devices to them, and publish these service packages in CloudPlatform. In Citrix CloudPlatform, you can use these service packages to create network offerings. Then, use these network offerings to create guest networks. The load balancer rules that you create on the guest networks will be communicated to NetScaler Control Center, which will transfer these rules to the NetScaler devices.

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